一个农民在保险合同里发现了一个木马。现在他可能会搞垮加拿大的保险业。

迈克尔·霍金斯在萨斯喀彻温省首都雷纳的一项精算师们在萨斯喀彻温省的一部分工作，当时他发现了可能带来加拿大保险业的漏洞。他的老板在冠生活中，前天体物理学家告诉他，如果人们利用了透明景点的选择 - 至少在一项广泛的保险合同中，这些公司将被破产。

霍金斯，一个带有30多头奶牛的婴儿的农民和他的牛小牛农场的公牛，他现在住在安大略省南部的独特名为Flesherton镇，距离他长大的地方有50英里，如同一个例子，这insurers sell what’s called term-to-100 life insurance. This type of insurance guarantees that premiums stay the same for the life of the policyholder. As he explains this, it’s December, a week before Christmas, and Hawkins has driven down from his farm to meet me in Toronto at the offices of large Canadian law firm Aird & Berlis.

“想一想，”霍金斯说。“当消费者停止支付时 - 无论是在购买政策后一年还是50年 - 他们无所不机，保险公司被释放不得不支付死亡利益。”

“I bought one when I lived in Regina when I was 25,” he explains. “The premiums I pay today, at 48, are the same as when I bought it. But the policy has no cash value, so people let them lapse all the time, even though when they are 85 or 90, that contract has a lot of value,” says Hawkins. “Insurance companies take advantage of that.”

上世纪90年代，霍金斯在皇冠人寿（Crown Life）从事当时流行的万能人寿保险产品，该产品还为持有人提供一系列投资，包括提供3%至5%最低担保利率的短期账户。最关键的是，一些银行对存款金额没有限制。保险公司正在积极地相互竞争，以吸引那些持有包含投资成分的寿险保单、关注股市上涨的客户。在这些产品中隐藏着霍金斯的特洛伊木马。

由1997, Hawkins had moved to Toronto to take a job at insurance specialist Buck Consultants. Still working on universal life, valuing the products and helping brokers design them, he was loving his job of analyzing old contracts, some of which were issued by insurance companies long ago acquired by competitors.

In 2000, he started his own firm. One of his consulting clients, an investment banker, asked about hedging the exposure to minimum interest rate guarantees and whether there were limits on the amount of contributions the policyholder could make. “Maybe, maybe not,” Hawkins says he told the client. “If not, that would be an interesting option to hold,” mused the banker, echoing the words of Hawkins’ astrophysicist boss at Crown Life.

霍金斯将银行家的话语带到心中，到2007年底，他开始了一个名为Dominion-West财务的企业，寻找没有限制的合同。

霍金斯开始研究合同，发现没有贡献限制，即加拿大的AIG子公司仍在发行（蒙特利尔银行之后，当AIG由美国政府于2008年被美国政府纾湄批保子公司）。他于2008年买了它。现在，他有一份合同，他可以有一天可以用来赚取短期资金的额外利息。如果市场价格低于保险公司的保证，霍金斯可以提供外部客户的价格高于市场。然后，他会口碑与保险公司支付的差异。

霍金斯为合同建立了三个有限的合作伙伴关系，以萨斯喀彻温省铁路线上的停止命名：MOSTEN，ITUNA和ATWATER。他还聘请了一家在萨斯卡通的律师事务所，以确保 - 他正确地预期了一场战斗 - 他正在做正确的事情。

在他的高中和大学卷曲团队中扮演的霍金斯知道那里有更多的合同，无论是多年来他都记住的那些细节，还是通过易于提供的公共信息来筛选。但他需要找到想要销售和购买最有利可图的选择的业主。这不会容易，因为只有四个加拿大省，一个是萨斯喀彻温，允许被称为贩运 - 购买和销售保险合同。“听起来很糟糕，不是吗？”霍金斯说。

2008年至2010年间，霍金斯缠着保险代理人寻找那些不再需要他们在90年代购买的保单的人的线索，然后收购了8份万能人寿保险合同，这些合同现在归加拿大最大的保险公司宏利金融公司所有；产业联盟保险与金融服务；以及蒙特利尔银行的保险部门。根据霍金斯的说法，所有这些银行都提供至少3%的担保利率，不限金额的金钱、奖金和其他津贴。有些允许受益人随着时间的推移而增加，使合同永久有效。霍金斯希望合同中有不可撤销的担保，这意味着合同中没有“服从行政规则”这样的措辞（这一措辞后来会在法庭上引起争议）。

霍金斯在2011年从外部客户那里筹集资金。

In 2012, an insurance broker introduced Hawkins to Gary Selke, a former partner in Front Street Capital, which manages hedge funds and other investments. Selke’s family has a long history in hockey: His grandfather, Frank J. Selke, was an executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens. Hawkins teamed up with Selke, who bought shares in the three partnerships, three years later. Selke became president and CEO of Mosten, Ituna, and Atwater.

“当我第一次看到合同时，我惊讶，困惑，兴趣，对这些条款的好奇，”在多伦多Selke说。“那些写着它们的人显然不明白他们。但法院以一般可预测的方式解释保险合同。如果这发生在这里，那么在我们面前有机会。“

MOSONNEN，ITUNA和ATWATER现在是世界上一些最有价值的普遍生活合同的人。毫不奇怪，这三家保险公司不同意。

霍金斯现在发现自己at the center of a bitter fight.

保险业和加拿大一样，很少成为这种戏剧的背景。但目前的阴谋包括一位精算师、一位来自加拿大曲棍球皇室的风险资本家、三家保险公司以及该国最好的律师——他们都是案件的双方当事人(工业联盟发言人就这起诉讼提供了最新的新闻稿，并拒绝进一步置评。BMO没有回应置评请求。）

Although the insurers initially accepted deposits into the contracts — Industrial Alliance took them for six years and paid out half a million dollars in interest — they ultimately stopped honoring them. Manulife accepted deposits from 2010 to early 2016, according to an affidavit from Hawkins filed with the court on November 21, 2016.

Manulife pushed back, sending some existing deposits and new checks back to Mosten. Among other reasons, it cited the actions as not being “in accordance with administrative rules.” After Hawkins specifically asked if he could make a $1 million deposit, Paul Lorentz, general manager of individual wealth management and insurance at the time, responded that the company would not accept it because the so-called carrier fund was only administrative in nature and that it would violate the Insurance Companies Act’s prohibition on deposits. In court documents, Mosten includes copies of other universal life contracts that have language allowing Manulife to invoke administrative rules around certain rights, but the policy Hawkins bought does not include those lines.

在尝试与公司交谈的解决方案后，占据了迈阿斯喀经法院提起申请的所谓申请。2016年11月23日提交的申请要求进行宣言判决 - 这只是确定缔约方之间的权利和法律关系 - 确定1997年颁布的普遍生活政策的业主的权利，称为建筑师经典IIE，蜂房从Aetna加拿大经过一系列收购。Ituna和Atwater将在2016年11月和2017年1月的蒙特利尔银行和蒙特利尔银行提出了类似的申请。

After repeated delays, atrial began in September 2018. The insurers have argued that the court shouldn’t analyze the language of the contracts, explaining that the policies need to be looked at in terms of their purpose and intent and the context in which they were issued. They say the “spirit” of the insurance contracts was just that: insurance; they were not to be used as investments, as the plaintiffs claim. The insurers have filed multiple briefs on “context” that include the history of the Insurance Companies Act, tax policies, and other regulations, including how to calculate reserve requirements. Context, if it’s relevant, though, has to be entirely obvious to the consumer, say legal experts.

Manulife, for one, has pulled out the bankruptcy card. Its expert witness claimed in court that the insurance company will go out of business if Hawkins and Selke are allowed to put an unlimited amount of money into the contracts.

During the three-week trial, Manulife painted a picture of Hawkins and Selke as greedy hedge fund managers trying to turn an insurance company into a money machine.

但是，一个机构公司至少有一个投资组合经理将霍金斯与迈克尔刘易斯的主角的主角比较到迈克尔·伯里大短片.伯里是2008年金融危机前第一批发现次级抵押贷款和结构性证券问题的投资者之一；市场崩盘时，他获利颇丰。霍金斯，在这个推理中，仅仅是利用了一个没有人注意到的小故障。

“如果您是投资专业人士，您会发现这些有趣的东西以某种方式破坏。你发现一些人没有观察到的东西，错误或创造价值的错误，“机构金钱经理说。“迈克尔是确定这一点的人，然后与Gary交谈。这是一个迷你版本大短片。“

Doug Steiner, who was a partner at RBC Capital with Selke in the ’90s and later formed a partnership with him investing in electronic-trading service ITG and other startups, says Hawkins is “the most detailed insurance expert I’ve ever met. He’s like a professor of insurance. He runs a farm, yeah, but he and Gary are smart people who have gotten wealthy by finding little niches to exercise their intelligence.”

意外的利基有一个危险的翻盖。“返回评论Warren Buffett表示，多年前，衍生品是大规模杀伤性的武器，”机构金钱经理说。“如果你是写下这些合同的人，那么你不小心你所做的事情，那么你在盔甲中创造了这些爆曲。”

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Yet at first blush,加拿大法律专家称，看来宏利和其他保险公司的情况相当不错。

“我的第一次倾向是说，”好吧，你认为你如何投入你想要的东西？How do you get there?’ But I’m not sure a judge who has read the briefs will keep that initial response very long,” says a corporate lawyer in Toronto, who I meet after a long walk through the city’s underground mall to avoid the cold.

Manulife and the other insurers argue that to determine the meaning of the contracts, you must read them within the larger context of the insurance industry and what was originally intended. They argue that the contracts were never meant for investment purposes, even though former insurance agents have told亚博赞助欧冠that is untrue and that Manulife’s marketing materials for agents for a similar policy emphasized the benefits of the investment features. For example, buried in court documents, an exhibit shows an illustration of the potential value of the death benefit — which includes the value of the life insurance purchased and the value of the investments at different ages. At age 100, the illustration details, Manulife shows the total benefit would grow to $23 million, representing $1 million in insurance and $22 million in investment value.

保险公司还说,鹰ins and Selke’s plan is absurd, given the regulatory needs of insurers, such as having adequate reserve requirements. The investment accounts, they say, were only meant for premiums to pay for the insurance. Outside lawyers say the language of the contracts is clear and that the insurance companies have chosen the only defense they could, which is to, at all costs, argue for the “spirit” of the agreements.

但还有另一个扭曲。

在大多数和其他伙伴关系之前，在2016年在萨斯卡通的法院提交了申请，塞尔克向举办了举报了U.S和加拿大监管机构的庭院。该报告索赔庭院未能披露合同可能导致大损失和非法分发投资产品。（根据迈尔费，该公司已经“没有看到任何”举报人报告“，而且没有监管机构在我们披露的情况下对我们的披露作出了任何缺陷。”）

莫斯滕在过去的九个月里一直试图让宏利兑现合同。塞尔克用十几个他与保险公司互动的例子以及拒绝合伙企业存款的理由作为证据，记录了他的案例。

Selke claimed Manulife should have disclosed the risks of the Architect Classic IIe because between 1997 and 1998, it created about 35,000 of the products, which allow owners to invest an unlimited amount of cash at a minimum rate of interest. The contracts made sense in the late ’90s because Manulife could earn a profitable spread between that minimum and market rates available at the time. However, Selke says, the subsequent decline in interest rates made these products “toxic” and Manulife now has “potentially unlimited exposure and liability.”

What’s more, he used Manulife’s attempts to block him from using the contracts as evidence that they must be toxic. “Manulife is breaching its guarantees and obligations because it is aware of the terms contained in the Architect Class IIe products,” he said in the whistleblower reports.

Once the trial began and Manulife argued that, among other things, it could go bankrupt, Selke updated the whistleblower reports with the new information, building his argument with the insurance company’s own words. When new information was introduced at trial that bolstered the reports, Selke would file another update.

When the trial ended and the judge said he would issue a decision by the end of the year, Muddy Waters, an activist short seller run by Carson Block,10月4日宣布空仓在保险公司并发布了一份关于漫步潜力负债的报告，股票下降了14％。“如果法官规则在尤其人的青睐中，他们可以将其转化为世界上最高的货币市场。这将是基金管理人员来解决现金的有吸引力的替代品，他们可以用数十亿美元的装饰，“Real Vision, a financial news show, in December.

（在书面陈述中，甲状手期被声明它“认真对待其披露义务，并符合适用的披露要求。本公司在确定是否披露之前，请仔细检查诉讼。在这种情况下，在这种情况下大量损失的可能性是偏远的因此，莫斯特诺特不是重大。如我们第三季度2018年分析师呼吁所述，我们预计大部分和其他对甲鱼对甲鱼的信心有兴趣的其他人将继续抵制我们的立场，并且可能对传播错误信息有兴趣。“）

布洛克强调，他并没有押注诉讼将朝哪个方向发展，而是做空该股，因为当时市场还没有意识到风险。在Muddy Waters报告发布后，宏利在10月4日的新闻稿中首次披露了有关审判的信息。

Before the judge was able to deliver a decision, the government of Saskatchewan intervened. On October 29, the province改变了保险法规to limit the amount of premiums a life insurer may receive or accept for deposit in certain life insurance policies. Manulife then issued a press release saying the regulation changes resolved the case. “Manulife and the other life insurers involved in similar matters plan to make submissions to the court, asking it to dismiss the claims that life insurers can be compelled to accept unlimited premium payments,” the firm said. Industrial Alliance issued a similar statement. Manulife’s stock rose, at least temporarily.

追溯的监管是审判结束后几周，并没有遵循正常的程序流程，例如公众评论和讨论。许多规则可能需要18个月才能实施。其他省份没有关于限制的类似规则。“政府在正在进行的审判中进行干预是非常不寻常的，”Selke说。加拿大人寿和健康保险协会在此案中介入，称MOSTEN和其他伙伴关系的立场违背了加拿大产品和监管制度的目标。

块同意监管的时机odd. “This is suspicious in timing. The regulation was promulgated two or three weeks after we made it public. So they get media attention and suddenly there’s a new Saskatchewan regulation. Interesting insight into our friends to the north,” he toldReal Vision.

这并不是保险公司第一次因承保失误而陷入困境，特别是在2008年之后，当时市场低迷和利率下跌凸显了财务影响。由于未能对冲可变年金担保的风险，宏利不得不在金融危机期间发行更多股票并借入数十亿美元。哈特福德金融公司（Hartford Financial）、沃亚金融公司（Voya Financial）和其他保险公司在过去十年里，以一小部分成本抛售了数十亿美元的可变寿险或年金负债，因为这些合同拖累了它们的股价。

如果它不适用于低利率，没有人会争取这些合同。保险公司从未想象世界各地的长期利率将低于5％。

After the Saskatchewan regulation, the judge in the case said he would consider the rule and delayed his decision. Manulife filed a new brief in late December; Hawkins and Selke will file a response at the end of January. The trial will be reopened for three days in February.

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Until Justice Brian Scherman总而言之，我们之间是一场口水战。

Manulife says that it’s all, well, absurd.

莫斯滕提议的合同解释在商业上是荒谬的。这表明，宏利（通过其前身安泰）签订了一份合同，为无限期存款提供担保利率，”宏利在8月份提交的法律简介中表示。

它是荒谬的，保险公司索赔，因为它可以取消加拿大人寿保险行业。担任律师简介：

“这一解释不仅是由合同语言而不受支撑的，并禁止法规 - 它也会对甲型花花体和对整个加拿大人寿保险行业的稳定效果产生重大和严重的财务影响。这不能成为原始保险合同的各方。“

“恶作剧”是BMO Life副总裁兼指定精算师特里·迪特里希（Terry Dietrich）2017年4月在一份关于霍金斯对合同解释的宣誓书中写道的。

“如果Atwater的应用成功，那么潜在的危害是，数亿美元（如果不是数十亿美元或更多）可供对冲基金和养老基金使用，以寻求具有完全流动性和有利回报率的高评级投资机会，迪特里希接着说，如果合伙企业为此赚取费用，将会有“进一步的具体损害”。

It might not be what the insurers intended, but Hawkins and Selke maintain that the contracts are black and white. They say Manulife and the other insurers can solve the problem by offering a new policy in exchange for the old one — for a price, of course. Manulife did something similar for some annuity holders late last year. (Hawkins and Selke, however, do not want to sell their policies.)

“The insurance companies need to get the product back and clean up the mess,” Selke says. “But I’m not aware of a financial product recall. It’s similar to the Tylenol problem, but here the product is bad for the company — and good for the consumer.”